Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Baroness Thornton

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman]

I wanted to develop the noble and learned Lord’s theme of recognising the objection then allowing someone else in the chain—in the pool of services—to take that on. However, Clause 1(2) says that:

“For the purposes of subsection (1) … ‘participating in an activity’ includes any supervision, delegation, planning or supporting of staff”,

so that would prohibit the very approach the noble and learned Lord has outlined. In addition, not that I belong to any religious group at all, but Buddhists approach these issues with the concept of right belief, right livelihood.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, to add to that, in the debate at Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord suggested that there need to be amendments to the Bill, but the movers of the Bill have not brought forward any of those amendments to allow us to have that discussion.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I was looking for help in this area from people who know better than me about administration, because I have never participated in the administration of the National Health Service, and I am thankful that I was able to find some other employment. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, has proposed an amendment which—subject to the objections I mentioned, that you would discriminate against people with a conscientious objection—is a way of fitting this into the administration. For example, they may think that the only way you can deal with this is to have the person at a certain grade, but one of the things about conscience is that you must be prepared to make sacrifices to secure your conscientious objection. I do not say for a minute that I want to justify any discrimination on the ground of conscience, but this is not discrimination. It is trying to fit the system to accommodate, so far as possible, the real objection people have. It is not just an objection to being hands-on; they are thinking about killing human life. I think all of us would think, if that idea were correct, that that was a very dangerous operation to have regard to.

[Baroness Thornton]

I take exception to that idea. There are people in this Chamber who do not agree with that definition of killing human life at that stage of an embryo’s growth.